Advertise on podcast: Aspire with Emma Grede

Ari Emanuel is one of the most powerful people in entertainment and the real-life inspiration for Ari Gold on Entourage. He started in the CAA mailroom before co-founding Endeavor with three other agents and very little money. Over the next three decades, he merged the company with William Morris, acquired IMG and UFC, and helped reshape the modern entertainment business. In this conversation, Ari and Emma examine the qualities behind that extraordinary career. Ari opens up about growing up with severe dyslexia, being bullied, and using the anger he carried from those experiences to drive himself forward. He explains why you have to say what you want, how he works until he finds the yes, and why curiosity only becomes valuable when you act on it. They also explore the harder side of success. Ari reflects on the rage and aggression that helped him build his company, the moment he realized those qualities could no longer take him forward, and the work he has done to become a better leader. They get into: Turning dyslexia and rejection into emotional enduranceWhy nobody will advocate for your future more fiercely than youWhat Ari learned from starting in the CAA mailroomHis relentless approach to calls, rejection, and finding the yesHow he turns curiosity into relationships and opportunitiesWhy company culture is shaped by the behavior leaders tolerateWhat founders misunderstand about how long success takesKnowing when the qualities that built your career need to evolveWhy Ari ultimately values a life of meaning over a traditional legacyAri’s new memoir, Roll the Calls, is available now.

Diane von Furstenberg created the iconic wrap dress in her twenties and built her namesake company DVF into one of the most recognizable fashion brands in the world. More than fifty years later, as she approaches 80, she's entering a new chapter — with a lifetime of lessons to share. In this episode of Aspire, Emma sits down with her longtime friend and idol for a deeply personal conversation about self-belief, independence, motherhood, aging and becoming the woman you want to be. Diane opens up about the choices she made as a working mother, why guilt and fear are not options, the mistakes she's made along the way, and what it takes to like the person you've become. Diane shares: How to build the kind of self-belief that carries you through every stage of lifeWhy the most important relationship you'll ever have is the one you have with yourselfHow to stop comparing yourself to other people and own who you areWhy guilt and fear should never drive your decisionsWhat motherhood taught her about raising independent children without losing yourselfWhy independence has always mattered more to her than moneyHow to learn from mistakes without letting them define youWhy kindness is a currency — and how it compounds over timeWhat getting older has taught her about confidence, clarity and becoming more yourself

On this special birthday solo of Aspire, Emma Grede shares 44 rules for life, business, and success—her personal operating system for nearly everything. This is everything she knows to be true about money, work, marriage, and motherhood, plus the beliefs she actually uses to make decisions, build companies, and recover from her mistakes. In this episode, you’ll learn: Why taking responsibility for your life is the biggest power move you'll ever makeHow to build confidence before you feel readyThe question that exposes whether your full schedule is progress or avoidanceWhy you should ask for more money before resentment sets in, and how to do itThe case for treating your choice of partner as the biggest business decision of your lifeWhat most successful people get wrong about happinessWhy your reputation is built when there’s no immediate reward

Andrew Rosen has spent nearly five decades building, investing in, and shaping some of the most influential brands in American fashion. As the co-founder of Theory and an early investor in brands like TWP, rag and bone, Veronica Beard, Alice + Olivia, Good American and SKIMS, he’s also one of Emma's closest mentors.  His advice comes from doing the work — and learning what happens when things don't go to plan. In this conversation, Andrew shares the lessons he took from his father, the setbacks that shaped how he built Theory, and the advice he gave Emma when she was becoming a brand owner. They explore how to trust your instincts, choose the right investors, and build a profitable business with staying power. They get into: Taking over as CEO of the family business in his twentiesLosing control of the company — and what he did nextGetting fired, and why he never saw it as failureThe experience he brought to starting Theory at 40Why profitability has to be part of the plan from the startWhat founders should actually look for in an investorThe lessons he took from his father that still shape how he does business

Durana Elmi knows how to build a business. Before Cymbiotika, she built and exited four companies. She then took a wellness brand with one employee, one product, and almost no infrastructure and helped scale it into a $150 million business alongside her husband Shahab. In this episode of Aspire, Emma sits down with Durana to unpack the decisions behind that growth. They also get candid about money, marriage, and leadership. Durana shares why financial independence matters deeply to her, what 27 years of building alongside her husband has taught her about disagreement, and how her definition of success has changed from making money to owning her time. You’ll learn: Why Cymbiotika bootstrapped for five years before taking outside capitalWhat infrastructure needs to be in place when a business starts growing faster than you can keep up withThe expensive lessons founders can learn from going into retail too quicklyWhat a $25 million strategic raise brought beyond capitalWhy celebrity investors became a part of Cymbiotika’s growth strategyHow to make decisions when data challenges your instincts

It's easier than ever to launch a beauty brand—and harder than ever to make it last. In this first-ever Aspire founders roundtable, Danessa Myricks (Danessa Myricks Beauty), Dianna Cohen (Crown Affair), and Amy Liu (Tower 28) get honest about what it actually takes to build and scale a brand people believe in. These aren’t early ideas—they’re Sephora-scale businesses: Tower 28, launched in 2019, now with a reported $228 million valuation; Crown Affair, launched in 2020 and scaled from roughly 55 to 600 Sephora doors, with a dry shampoo that has ranked #1 in the category; and Danessa Myricks Beauty, a profitable-since-launch business that had already grown to roughly 500 SKUs before entering Sephora.From getting into Sephora and staying there, to raising capital vs. bootstrapping, to building community you can't reverse-engineer—this is the real playbook for 2026.In this episode, you’ll learn: What separates brands that last, and why launching is easy but sustaining is hardHow to build community with soul, purpose, and missionThe truth about retail and the operational and financial discipline it takes to scale in SephoraHow to fund your vision, what outside money is really for, and why finding aligned investors is keyHow founders evolve with intention and decide what to control, when to delegate, and different ways to lead a brand through growth

There’s a lot of dopey financial advice out there. Jill Schlesinger is here to call it out, answer your questions, break down the financial news that actually matters, and help you manage your money without losing your mind. No jargon. No judgment. Just clear, actionable financial guidance about saving, investing, buying a home, managing your career, and deciding how to spend your hard-earned dollars. When it’s time to panic, Jill will tell you. When everyone else is panicking and you shouldn’t be, Jill will tell you that too. Your money. Your move. Let’s go.

Arthur C. Brooks believes we are living through an age of emptiness—a time when more people feel distracted, disconnected, and unsure of what will actually make their lives meaningful. In his latest book, The Meaning of Your Life, the Harvard professor and New York Times bestselling author examines why so many of the things we chase in pursuit of happiness can leave us feeling unsatisfied once we get them.  In this episode, Emma Grede sits down with Brooks to unpack what is driving our unhappiness and what science actually says about building a meaningful life. Brooks reveals the two questions he gives his Harvard students to diagnose whether they’re experiencing a meaning crisis, why our brains struggle in a world of constant comfort, and how to use social media without letting it drain you.  You’ll learn: Why achievement rarely satisfies us for as long as we expectWhat money can—and cannot—do for your happinessThe five-year exercise that reveals whether your priorities match how you spend your timeWhat to do in the first and last hour of the day to protect your attention The step most people skip that makes new practices stickHow to pursue a big goal without becoming emotionally attached to the outcomeThe simple ritual to shift your baseline happiness by 15 percent in 12 weeks

Jennifer Garner is an award-winning actor, producer, longtime Save the Children ambassador, and co-founder of Once Upon a Farm, an organic children’s food brand. After rising to fame on Alias, she built a career spanning more than three decades before entering entrepreneurship at 45 and helping grow Once Upon a Farm into a $724 million publicly traded company. Jennifer joins Emma to talk about the side of success people rarely see: losing years of her life when Alias made her famous, disappearing from friendships, and how the constant presence of paparazzi warped her confidence.  Jennifer shares: What Jennifer is only now realizing about approval and earning her placeHow years of rejection and several failed ideas prepared her for entrepreneurshipWhat she’s learned about holding anger without burying itHow to recognize the value you bring without conventional qualificationsWhen fame and visibility can help a business, and where they cannotWhat it actually looks like to protect a company’s missionWhy your biggest chapter doesn’t come with an age limit

In this solo episode, Emma shares how she thinks about money, from the lessons she learned growing up in East London to the principles she uses today. She gets into her personal financial priorities, why your earning power can matter more than your savings, how to negotiate from a position of strength, and why no woman should ever outsource the understanding of her own finances. In this episode, you’ll learn: What your financial priorities should be in your 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50sWhy your ability to earn can be more valuable than your savings early in your careerHow your beliefs about money can influence what you earn, ask for, and keepHow to negotiate salary, equity, and other forms of compensation more effectivelyThe difference between earning money, building wealth, and protecting what you’ve builtWhy investing early matters—and what can happen when you waitHow to think about financial independence as freedom, security, and choice

Emma sits down with Krissy Cela, founder and creative director of Oner Active, for an honest conversation about building a bootstrapped business on track to generate close to $300 million this year. Before Oner, Krissy spent a decade building a fitness audience and business from a student laptop, long before either was considered a conventional career path. Today, she owns 50 percent of one of the fastest-growing brands in the category.  But what happens when your life asks you to become someone you don’t yet feel qualified to be, and people still look for reasons not to credit your success to you? This episode is about starting before you feel ready, letting go of the need to prove yourself, and growing into the leader your business requires. In this episode, Krissy shares: Why feeling underqualified should not stop you from building something bigHow she turned an online audience into a loyal customer communityThe early legal and partnership mistakes that shapes how she operates todayHow people-pleasing weakened her leadership, and what changed since she stoppedWhy the ones who doubt you are rarely the ones who end up matteringFor more, subscribe to our weekly newsletter at emmagrede.com.

Erin and Sara Foster have spent more than 15 years working across television, fashion, media and investing. Today, they are behind the hit Netflix series Nobody Wants This, the fashion brand Favorite Daughter, a production company, a venture fund and a growing slate of projects—but their success did not arrive according to a master plan. In this episode, they join Emma to unpack the failures, pivots and unlikely opportunities that eventually brought everything together. It is a conversation about staying in motion when the path is unclear, discovering your strengths later than expected, and refusing to treat someone else’s success as evidence that you are falling behind. In this episode, Erin and Sara share: What nobody tells you about the years before anything worksThe power of saying yes before the path is clearHow they built Favorite Daughter without being traditional “fashion girls”The different ways scarcity and abundance shape their relationship with moneyWhat Erin learned from seven years of IVF and 20 rounds of treatmentWhy it’s never too late to find your lane and how failure can redirect you toward the career you were meant for

Every woman should understand the partnership she's entering before a crisis forces her to. This episode is that conversation. Laura Wasser has spent 32 years as one of the country's most sought-after divorce attorneys. She’s the person people call when a marriage is ending. But what makes this conversation so valuable is that almost everything she knows matters long before anyone gets divorced. This episode is about understanding what you are building when you merge your life with another person. Laura explains why marriage is already a contract with or without a prenup, how to protect yourself whether you earn more or less than your partner, and why knowing your financial reality doesn’t make you cynical or unromantic. It makes you an equal participant in your own life. Laura shares: How to have the what’s-mine-is-yours conversation about income, debt, assets, spending, and childrenWhat should go into a prenup—and what does not belong in oneHow a prenup can protect both the higher earner and the partner making financial or career sacrificesThe signs that you're giving away power inside your own marriage without realizing itWhy earning your own money doesn’t mean you’re financially protectedWhat to do when you realize you have no idea what is happening with your family’s financesHow to end a relationship with less fear and a clearer sense of what comes nextWhy divorce doesn’t have to mean you’ve failed—and how her online platform is making the process more accessible and less intimidatingFor more, subscribe to our weekly newsletter at emmagrede.com.

Emma Chamberlain started posting videos at 16, before anyone fully understood what the creator economy would become. Within a couple of years she’d become one of the most watched people on YouTube with over 12 million subscribers, ambassador deals with Louis Vuitton, Cartier and Lancôme, and a Spotify-exclusive podcast. She helped define a new kind of fame, built one of the most recognizable personal brands of her generation, and turned an authentic love of coffee into Chamberlain Coffee, now sold in over 8,000 retail doors across Walmart, Target, Costco and Sprouts.  Now, at 25, she’s asking a more complicated question: what happens when the business, and the person, need to grow beyond the identity that made them successful? Today, she’s answering why, after years of relentless momentum, she’s giving herself permission to step back and rediscover what actually fulfills her. In this episode, Emma shares: Why she moved into the co-CEO seat, and the fear that came with itThe real business story behind choosing profitability over growthWhat she’s learned about running a brand built around one personWhy she stepped away from her podcast at the height of itThe personal cost of giving an audience constant access to your lifeWhy she believes influencer culture is approaching a major shift

Reshma Saujani a leading advocate for women’s economic power, the founder of Girls Who Code and Moms First, and the force behind the new documentary No Country for Mothers. After helping change the culture around girls in technology, she has turned her attention to the policies and assumptions that continue to push women—especially mothers—out of the workforce. In this conversation, she joins Emma to talk about the cultural and structural forces shaping women’s ambition, motherhood, money, and power. They get into the real cost of childcare, paid leave, and workplace inflexibility; why mothers are still penalized for showing up as their full selves at work; and how the internet has turned “trad wife vs. girl boss” into a culture war that keeps women fighting each other instead of fighting for meaningful change. In this episode, Reshma and Emma discuss: Who benefits from pitting women against each otherThe motherhood penalty and why it differs from the gender pay gapWhat real workplace support for women and mothers should actually look likeWhy fighting for a better system and taking responsibility for your life can both be true at onceWhat it takes to create more choice, freedom, and economic power for womenHow to build a world women don’t have to shrink their lives to fit the systems around them